EDUC 6470 Final Project

For EDUC 6470, a project to examine innovative teaching, to search the literature, and to develop ideas.

Possible projects

What is important about the sequence of classes in a unit?

This semester I've been teaching electronics. I taught an 8 week class that included lessons normally put off until after "the basics" of electronic components were "presented." For the next 8 weeks I'm offering a components class that might be more recognizable as an introduction to the basics of electronics. Many students are taking both. Unstudied first arguments might be either of these opposites:

1. Students who build circuits first before reviewing the basics of each component will be more motivated to learn the basics of each component.
2. Students who build circuits first won't understand enough about each component to understand the circuit as a system of components.

I will examine these concerns as I teach the second course, and see if there's any literature on this subject of sequencing within a unit.

Parallels

I like to draw parallels to teaching in non-science subjects. In this case, I can draw a parallel between the dichotomies of basics to contextualized understandings in both subjects. For example, in english, specifically poetry, we could call iambs, troches, and rhymes the basics, and creative writing and literary analysis of an epic poem the contextualized understandings.

Related questions

• Should engineering be a part of K-12 science education, or treated separately, as in Massachusetts?
• Can we avoid mistakenly separating "applied science" from "pure science"? <bibref>Rowland:1883</bibref>
• Is the literature on sequencing only for long-term sequencing of concepts, as in Atlas of Science Literacy?
• Will this work have any translation to long-term sequencing, such as the sequencing of introductory undergraduate science?

References

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